Saving the Squeaks
by Clare Hope
Summary: The Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory must save the alien race, the Squeaks, from a mysterious illness affecting their children. Set somewhere in early series seven. Ships the Ponds, told 3rd person but Rory's P.O.V. DW isn't mine, but I like to play in its universe sometimes!
1. Chapter 1

One

"Nurse Williams, are you looking for other employment options?"

Rory Williams looked up from his book at a colleague who was holding a phone. "What? No, of course I'm not."

"Well, this is your wife, and she wants me to tell you that the doctor arrived at your house a couple hours ago."

Rory tried not to let his eyes betray too much excitement as he held out his hand for the phone. "Thanks, Andrews." The other nurse walked away and Rory put the phone up to his ear. "Hullo, Mrs. Williams," he said cheerfully. "Has our bow-tie wearing friend come to call again?"

Amy's very Scottish voice came through sounding exasperated. "Yes, husband, he has, and I'm getting really tired of him playing Wii tennis. He's been here since, like, an hour after you left for work, and he actually tried to get me to join him. So, can you come home early?"

"What? No, I'm busy, Amy!" He glanced down at the novel he was reading. "Yeah, totally busy, it's crazy here, so actually I might be coming home late."

Amy's tone was slightly accusatory. "Are you lying to me?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Come home. He says he needs our help with something."

Rory sighed. "Fine, ok, but even if he is a time traveling alien with two hearts, I don't always come at his beck and call."

"Yes, you do."

"Fair enough. Coming home now. Give us a few minutes. Love you."

"Love you too. Hurry." _Click._

Rory sighed again. Four months. Not a sight of him since the last time the Doctor had dropped them off at home. He had made maybe three or four phone calls since then, all of them messages left while both Williams' were out. He always sounded cheerful, making references to times and places he had gone, either with River Song or by himself, always assuring the Williams (the Ponds, as he called them, Amy's maiden name) that he was fine, and would come by sooner or later, but never hinting at how long it would be 'til he actually popped back. Rory told his boss that he was leaving early (that was okay, since the hospital had hardly anyone coming through) and drove home.

The TARDIS had landed on the flowerbeds again. Amy would not be thrilled when she saw that, but Rory ignored the crushed flowers and waved hello to the blue box. Since the TARDIS's soul had once been transplanted in a woman's body for a day, he had never thought of the beautiful old box as a machine again, and treated it as a person when no one could see him. Amy would probably consider it silly, though the Doctor did the same thing openly. As he walked up the path to the front door of the house, Amy, in a light blue shirt and dark jeans, opened the door. "Finally," she said. "What took you so long?"

Rory gave her a quick kiss. "Is he still on the Wii?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "Yes. He's worse then you."

"Oi," Rory retorted, and walked into the living room. Indeed, the Doctor was playing Wii tennis, fairly dancing around the room and standing on top of the couch. Rory switched the television off.

Instead of being annoyed, the Doctor twirled around, looking delighted. "Rory the Roman!" he called, dropping the remotes. "Rory Williams Pond!"

"Really not my name. Either of those. But yes, hello, Doctor. You parked the TARDIS on Amy's flowers." Rory smiled. "Bet you already got a lecture off her."

Coming down off the couch, the Doctor gave Rory a hug which left him gasping. "Who, Amy, or the TARDIS?" the Doctor asked jokingly, once he had released Rory.

"I was meaning Amy," Rory clarified. "But if your spaceship gave you a lecture, I wish I had been there. How's River?"

"She's fine. Last time I saw her she was popping off to deal with a couple of evil robots. So, basically, nothing new. What's new with the Ponds?"

"Williams'," Rory muttered.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. We're fine, everything's fine. Although I had to leave work early. What was so important?" Rory asked.

The Doctor winked. "You'll see."

Amy was leaning against the doorframe, watching the exchange with amusement. "Come along, boys," she said. "I have a feeling we should be heading towards a certain blue box parked on my poor flowers."


	2. Chapter 2

Two

The TARDIS interior pulsed with warm light as the Doctor flicked switches, pressed buttons, and flung levers, running down to the lower levels and back up again, his unruly mop of dark hair flopping over his eyes. Amy and Rory held on tight as the customary jolts and dips of the spaceship in flight tossed them about. "Where exactly are we going?" Rory called over the wheezing of the engines.

"Niopheltarus!" the Doctor replied. "Brilliant planet. Seven moons, eighteen hour days, two hundred seventy four days per year. Sixteen galaxies and eleven hundred years away from your day Earth. Two suns, also. Reminds me a bit of home. And great weather," he added as an afterthought. The TARDIS landed, and the Doctor flung open the TARDIS doors. A blast of icy, snowy wind swept into the TARDIS. Amy yelped, and Rory flung his hands up to protect his face from ice crystals, but the Doctor strode outside without hesitating. He flung his arms out. "Isn't it beautiful?" he cried over the howling wind.

"Lovely!" Amy shouted. "Freezing, though, don't you think?"

"Is it?" the Doctor asked sincerely, and walked back into the TARDIS since his companions weren't following him. He was covered in snow and ice and was shivering, but didn't seem to notice.

"Yeah, it really sort of is," Rory responded. He was looking through a compartment under the TARDIS floor for winter coats. "Where did you put the coats?" he asked the Doctor.

"Next compartment over to your right," the Doctor replied. Rory found them and handed a long purple one to Amy. He chose a light brown one for himself and tried to get the Doctor to wear a dark blue one. "No, no, no, I don't need one of those," he protested. "It's not that cold."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Honestly, you act like you're five sometimes instead of a thousand."

"One thousand, one hundred forty seven," the Doctor retorted, sounding a bit injured. "And nobody can see my bow-tie if I put that on."

"Nobody wants to see your bow-tie," Amy said in a consoling voice.

The Doctor gave in and put on the long coat. "Bow-ties are _cool_," he grumbled as he buttoned it up.

"And the weather's even cooler, so coat wins," Rory added.

"All right, all right. I'm putting it on, see, this is me, putting a coat on. Now if we're finished 'bundling up', there really are some people who need our help out there." The Doctor led Amy and Rory out into the blizzard.

"What sort of people are these?" Amy asked, trudging through the snow behind her husband.

"They are sort of hard to explain. They're called the Squeaks," the Doctor answered, ten yards ahead of the Ponds.

Rory laughed. "What kind of name is 'Squeak'?"

"What kind of name is Pond?" the Doctor retorted. "Trust me, you'll know why they're Squeaks soon enough. If we can find them. Surely it wasn't snowing quite this hard an hour ago? I can't see the suns." Sure enough, there was only the sort of gloomy light that accompanies a hard snowstorm permeating the thick cloud cover.

"You were here an hour ago?" Rory was a bit confused. "You've been sitting at our telly for hours."

The Doctor might have rolled his eyes. It was hard to tell because they were squinted almost shut against the ice crystals. "Time travel, Rory. Means what it sounds like. Hard to get used to, but I'd have thought you'd have got it by now."

Rory was embarrassed. "Right. Yeah. Sorry," he said sheepishly. "So basically you don't know where we're going?"

"Of course I know where we're going," the Doctor replied irritably. "Whether I can find it or not is a different story."

"Great," Rory complained. "Stuck in a snowstorm on an alien planet and our guide doesn't know what he's doing."

Amy, who had been falling behind, jogged through the crunching snow to catch up. She took Rory's hand. "So, a usual day's work, eh?"

Suddenly, an incredibly high-pitched voice cut through the blowing snow. "Indeed! Or that is what it sounds like when the Doctor has told us stories of himself. I do assume I am speaking to his companions, the Ponds?"

"Williams!" Rory corrected automatically. Then he looked around, peering through the blizzard. "Hang on, who said that? And where the heck are you?"

The Doctor looked delighted. "Eepa, old friend, come out of the snow! The Ponds have never met a Squeak before."

From out of the snow just in front of the trio, a small lump appeared to be forming out of the ground. It wasn't until two huge brown eyes blinked open and gazed up at him did Rory realize that it was a creature. Amy gasped. Rory blinked. And the Doctor grinned and tousled the long white fur on the Squeak's head. "Amy! Rory! Meet Eepa, the Squeaks' emperor. Eepa, Amy's the one with the red hair. Rory's the one with the nose."

"Oi!"

The Squeak, who stood about three feet tall, put his hands (or were they paws?) together and held them out to the Ponds. The Doctor explained, "Traditional Squeak greeting. Do the same." The Ponds did, slightly awkwardly. "Now, Eepa, can we get out of this snow? I'm afraid my companions aren't used to the cold. Their lips aren't normally blue, you know. Is there a guest hole we could use?"

Eepa nodded his furry round head. "Follow me, it is but a short distance." The Doctor and his two shivering friends followed Eepa for about a minute. They came to a place in the ground that the Squeak swept snow away from and slid aside a round door, two and half feet in diameter and made of a hard grey material, revealing a dark tunnel leading downwards at a steep angle. "Guests first," he said cordially.

Amy raised her eyebrows. "You want us to go in there?"

"Amelia!" the Doctor chastised. "Don't be rude, it's perfectly safe. It's just a little slide. I'll go first, watch." He stepped into the hole and slid downwards fast, shouting quietly "Geronimo!" as he did so.

Eepa watched in bewilderment. "Three times he has been down that hole, and he says that every time. What does it mean? Do you know?"

Amy laughed a little. "It means Geronimo!" And she followed the Doctor's lead, yelping a little as she slid out of sight. Rory sighed, and clambered carefully into the hole before dropping instead of jumping in recklessly. He shot down a smooth rock tunnel before it leveled out and he slid slowly to a stop at the end. Putting his feet on the firm ground below, he moved out of the way as Eepa popped out of the hole in the wall.

"Welcome, friends, to the underground world of the Squeaks," Eepa squeaked.


	3. Chapter 3

Three

The Doctor had immediately taken his coat off and straightened his blue bowtie. He folded up the coat and placed it on the floor. Rory looked up and around. The ceiling of the underground passageway was very high, over thirty feet, he estimated, but the width was not quite even five feet. It was slightly claustrophobic, Rory decided, and looked down the passage. Not very far ahead, a twist in the passage led out of view. "What's down there?" he asked of Eepa, pointing.

Eepa began to pad down the tunnel on soft furry feet. "Our world," he said simply. "Or what is left of it. Once, we lived on the surface, in the snow and under the suns, but our planet was invaded by the ones who call themselves humans."

Amy and Rory looked confused and slightly indignant. The Doctor intervened. "Hello! I'm an impartial bystander this time. Eepa, do you mind if I tell it from here? My friends here are from the same species as your invaders, though, might I say, some of the nicer ones. Ponds, the humans who came to this planet, eleven hundred years after your time, were looking for another planet, preferably one with no native intelligent life forms. They stumbled across Niopheltaurus, and though it was a bit cold, they decided it would suit their needs."

"But you said…" Amy started.

"I know what I said, Pond, now hear me out." But the Doctor didn't have time to be heard out, because the passage suddenly made a sharp turn and opened up into a cavern of considerable size. Arranged like a lot of city blocks with four houses in each block, round semi-spheres about six or seven feet high and about the same circumference filled the cavern. It was eerily silent, like the whole place was holding its breath. The Doctor frowned. "Something's not right," he whispered. Eepa shook his head sadly.

"One of the children has died," the emperor said quietly, and began to walk through the rows of homes, the Doctor following with his head bowed. Amy and Rory, too, followed Eepa through the neat, deserted streets. Near the rear of the cavern, there were some buildings that were larger than the rest. Eepa stepped through a curtain of soft white fabric into the one on the far left, closely followed by the three travelers. It was set up like a sort of infirmary, with curtains set around the single room blocking off little squares which must have been beds. A single Squeak, who looked feminine, was emerging from behind one of the curtains. Upon seeing the visitors, she inclined her head silently. Eepa nodded at her. "Let the silence be broken, for the life too short has been mourned. What has happened since I went away, Keea?"

The other Squeak, whose name was apparently Keea, raised her head. "No more have come down with the illness, lord, but I am so sorry. Your daughter is close to death."

Eepa seemed visibly shocked. Then he blinked his huge brown eyes once and asked "And the others?"

"A few have worsened, and none have improved."

Rory glanced at the Doctor. His head was bowed, and Rory wasn't quite sure if there were tears in his ancient eyes, or if it was just a trick of the light. Rory felt like he had to do something. "Sorry, can I help?" he asked of everyone around him. Amy looked at him, startled, while the two Squeaks just gazed at him blankly. "I'm a nurse," he said in his defense, though he wasn't quite sure why he was defending himself.

The Doctor raised his head to respond to his companion. "I'm sure you could, Rory, but the thing is, we don't actually know what's wrong with them. Speaking of," he added, "I need to get some samples and then get back to the TaRDIS, if that's all right with you, Eepa. We have to figure out what's causing this."

"Of course you may, Doctor," Eepa responded immediately. "You are free to do anything that you believe will help us."

Rory was slightly annoyed. Seriously, this was always what happened. Every time they went anywhere, he would try to help, and then the Doctor actually would help, because people trusted him instinctively with their secrets. Of course, he trusted the Doctor and understood that he had been travelling for a thousand years before he had even met Rory and Amy, and so naturally he knew more about this saving the world thing. But still, it would be nice if someone turned to him for advice for once.

The Doctor had kept talking. "In that case," he said, "I would really like to see one of the children affected." Keea pulled aside one of the curtains hanging around a bed.

"She was one of the first to become ill," Keea said sadly. Rory, Amy, and the Doctor all moved in for a closer look. The Doctor obviously knew what to expect, because he did not show any sign of surprise or shock, just sorrow. But Amy and Rory both gasped when they saw the tiny Squeak child curled up in a ball on the snow white sheets.

For the Squeak was not white like Eepa and Keea, but her fur seemed to be stained a horrible dark green. She was trembling and sniffing a little. If Rory concentrated, he could hear the same tiny snuffles coming from behind the other curtains, and wondered why he hadn't heard them before. The Doctor had stepped forward and knelt down next to the small, short, square bed pressed against the wall. He reached out a hand to touch her, but seemed to think better of it. Rory thought he knew why. Even if the disease, or whatever it was, wasn't contagious cross-species, it was better to be safe than sorry.

The Doctor pulled a little white plastic box from a pocket inside his tan coat. _How does he fit all that stuff in his coat_? Rory wondered, not for the first time. The Doctor opened the box and pulled out an empty syringe. Rory felt Amy flinch next to him and he took her hand as the Doctor drew a sample of the Squeak girl's blood. He was used to seeing things like that, every day at work, but he knew Amy didn't like to see anyone in discomfort, though she wasn't squeamish around blood. That was one of the reasons he loved her; her compassion that she didn't show very often behind her sassy, flirtatious exterior.

The bow tie wearing man seemed to decide he didn't care about the risks of contagion, and stroked the sleeping alien child on the top of her head once he had finished getting his sample to test. Her trembling slowed a little bit under the Doctor's fatherly gesture. He stood up suddenly, but whispered to the little girl something that Rory couldn't quite make out. It was something about a promise. Stowing the syringe away in its box and back into his coat, the Doctor turned to Eepa.

"I'm going to need to get back to my TaRDIS," he said, professional again, brisk and unemotional. "Eepa, will you accompany me? I don't want to lose my way, and my companions are still cold."

"Doctor, it's all right, we can come with you," Amy protested, but the Doctor gave her a small, enigmatic smile.

"Now, Amelia, I need you to stay here with Rory and help Keea take care of the children. And Rory," he added softly. "Don't let any of them die." Without waiting for a response from either of his companions, he turned and walked out of the infirmary, back into the underground city.

Eepa followed him, but not before he had said to Rory and Amy: "Thank you, the Doctor's friends, for all you are doing to help us, despite your species."


	4. Chapter 4

Four

Rory Williams had never felt as helpless as when he stood over the young Squeaks and watched their lives fading away. Each one's fur was an unnatural dark olive green, and it didn't wash out. He did what he could, with Amy's and Keea's help, but he didn't even know what the disease was, or even how it affected the body, since he did not understand the Squeaks' physiology.

From what Keea had told them in her high, soft tones, the patients' body temperatures were way above the normal levels. So, mostly, they were just trying to keep the temperatures down. Rory wished that he had brought some equipment from home, and hoped that the Doctor would bring some back with him from the TaRDIS. The Squeaks' technology was not very advanced in terms of medical science.

Keea sighed as they ran out of snow to keep fevers down. Again. "If you will excuse me," she said, "I will be right back." And she trundled away quickly to go back up into the snowstorm and fetch some more.

Rory and Amy kept trying to get the young Squeaks to drink some of the snowmelt, but even though some of them seemed to be conscious, none of them would drink or speak to them. The ones that were awake looked a bit frightened of the Ponds. They would squeak a bit in fear and bury their noses in their hands (or paws). When Amy tried to pick one of the smallest ones up, he wriggled and bounced out of her arms back onto his bed. "Rory," Amy said. "Rory, why won't they let us touch them?" Rory sighed and walked over to her.

"I don't know. Maybe they think…I don't know. Have any of them spoken to you?"

Amy shook her head. "No, none of them has said a word."

Then Keea walked back into the infirmary with a shallow, wide wooden bowl filled to the brim with clean white snow. She had overheard what they were saying. "No, none of them will speak even to me, and they know and trust me." She set the bowl down and scooped some of the snow up, heading directly towards the worst ill of the children, Eepa's daughter, who was, as the Ponds had learned, one of the first to become ill. Keea pressed the snow onto the fur on the young girl's forehead, who gave a whimper as it began to melt on contact. Amy sighed, and she and Rory went to gather more snow.

About ten minutes later, the Doctor and Eepa returned. The Doctor's floppy dark hair was turned nearly white with snow, and had frozen into clumps. He hadn't worn his dark blue overcoat, Rory realized, and his tan coat was soaked through. He still wasn't really showing the cold, but his face was grim and altogether he looked fairly miserable. Impulsively, Amy gave him a hug.

"You're all wet," she mumbled into his shoulder. The Doctor let her hug him for a moment and then pushed her away gently. The Doctor looked at Keea.

"I tested her blood," he said.

"And?" the healer Squeak asked anxiously.

The Doctor shook his head. "They aren't ill," he said. Everyone made some noise of surprise. "It isn't any sort of pathogen. I have no idea what it is." Rory could see how difficult to admit this was for him. "But I will figure it out, I swear, I will not let another one die."

No one else spoke, waiting for the Doctor to tell them what to do. That seemed like it was always the natural thing to do, in any situation. Even those who didn't know him would do it. He was always the one responsible for the plan, and for a moment, Rory felt sorry for him. The Doctor reached up and fingered his frozen hair, just for something to do. Rory couldn't let him just stand there, helpless.

"Well, something has to have caused this," Rory burst out. "Maybe something they came into contact with something over the past few days, some…poison, or chemical or something…" His voice trailed off, but it was enough. The Doctor looked at him, relieved.

"Well done, Rory," the Doctor praised. He glanced at Keea. "Do you know of anywhere they may have come into contact with something like that?"

Keea shook her furry white head. "Nothing in our underground city could have caused this, and they are not allowed above ground, which is why, I suppose, we assumed it must have been a disease."

"But it's only been kids," Amy said suddenly. "If it was a disease, why wouldn't the grown-ups and the old Squeaks get it too?"

"But like Keea said," Eepa interjected, "there is no way any of the children could have come across any poison that could do this. They simply are not allowed outdoors, because of the humans."

The Doctor gave a half smile. "And we know how well kids follow directions, don't we? Surely you understand, Eepa, you're a dad. You too, Ponds, though…" He stopped when he saw Amy's eyes and Rory's slight shake of the head. "Sorry." Then he continued. "But when you tell a kid not to do something, especially if you give them a reason like "'You're too little,'" they're bound to do the exact opposite. And parents have to learn that through experience, how to deal with it, how to phrase rules in a way that isn't patronizing and overbearing."

Eepa was curious. "And, Doctor, have you had that experience?"

As with all other times anyone had asked him about former family, the Doctor ignored him. He cleared his throat. "So. Um, I need to talk to one of the kids who are still conscious."

"But they won't talk, even to me," Keea protested.

"They will to me," the Doctor said simply. "Do I have permission?"

Eepa inclined his head. "Of course, Doctor."

The Doctor went to one of the beds. The Squeak child in the bed looked at him, wide eyed and silent. The Doctor knelt down next to the bed, as the child gave a tiny shuddering cough and closed his eyes, pretending to be asleep. "Hello." The Doctor waited a moment for a response. He didn't get one. "I know you're awake, and I know you can hear me." His voice was firm, but very kind. "You're very sick, do you know that?" Still no response. "Do you know what made you sick?" Silence. "I don't either. But I think you do. Did you go above ground recently?" The Squeak opened his eyes again. The Doctor saw the fear in them. "Hey, don't be scared, I won't be mad. I promise, you won't get in trouble. 'Kay?" Very slowly, the young alien nodded. "But I need you to talk to me. Please, will you talk to me?"

Finally, the Squeak answered him. "Okay," he said in barely discernible whisper.

The Doctor smiled encouragingly. "Thank you, sweetheart. Now, I want you to answer my question. Did you go above ground recently?"

"Yes."

Keea gasped. "Neeko!" The Doctor glared at her sharply. She took a step back, ashamed.

The Doctor turned back to Neeko. "Like I said, I won't let you get in trouble. How long ago was this?"

"…Two days."

"And did you come across anything weird? Anything yucky, or something that didn't smell or look right?"

Neeko looked scared again. "Are you a human?" he whispered.

"No," the Doctor whispered back. "Want me to prove it?" He held out his hand and took Neeko's paw, pressing it first to the left side of the Time Lord's chest and then to the other. "See?" he said. "Two hearts."

Neeko, reassured that the Doctor wasn't a human, wasn't scared any longer. He sat up and leaned towards the Doctor's ear, and whispered for about a minute.

"Thank you, Neeko." The Doctor gave the tiny alien a hug. "Go to sleep now, I'm going to go find something to make you feel better." Neeko lay back down on his bed, curled up into a little ball, and fell asleep, exhausted.

The Doctor stood up and walked towards the door. "I have to go out," he said. "Don't follow me."

Amy followed him. "Doctor, you're still soaking wet! You're going to freeze!"

He turned around and held out a hand to stop her at the doorway. "Amelia," he said. "I said, don't follow me. I'll be fine."

"But you need someone to go with you!" Amy protested.

The Doctor shook his head. "You'll only slow me down." And with that, he turned again, and strode quickly away.


	5. Chapter 5

Five

With the conclusion that the young Squeaks were frightened of humans, Amy and Rory had been asked politely to wait outside the infirmary by Keea. They leaned against the packed dirt wall. The village was still eerily silent. Eepa had said that everyone was afraid to come out, because of the disease, in case it was contagious, even though the Doctor had decided it probably wasn't, and partly because of Amy and Rory.

"He is going to freeze," Amy said to Rory.

Rory sighed. "Yeah, I know."

"_Why _aren't we following him?"

Rory rolled his eyes. "Because he told us not to."

Amy pouted a little. "That's never stopped us before."

"I don't think he's ever been quite this serious about it before," Rory said. "Why is he being so serious about it?"

Amy sighed. "God knows." She fell silent. Then: "Rory, I'm worried about him."

"Me too," Rory agreed. "It's like, something about this situation is reminding him of something, or someone, from a long time ago, and it's like he's trying not to make the same mistake. Or maybe he's just worried that if he can't figure out what's going on, all these kids are going to die. And I'm not sure how he'd deal with that."

"I expect he'd handle it very badly."

"_I'd_ handle it pretty badly," Rory said.

"Yeah, me too, but not like him. I mean, can you imagine…" Amy speculated.

Rory shook his head once and squeezed her hand, cutting her off. "You know, Amy, I really don't want to imagine."

"Sorry." There was a long pause. "What if he doesn't come back? I mean, if something happens to him, and we aren't there?" So Amy really was very worried, Rory thought.

"Look, let's see. It's been like twenty minutes since he left. If he's not back in an hour, we'll go looking for him. Okay?"

"Yeah. I suppose." Amy sank down onto the floor. Rory followed and put his arm around her. Her arms wrapped around her knees, and she leaned into Rory. Their breathing was in unison as they waited.

The Doctor was cold. Very, very cold. His tan coat had been soaking wet when he had ventured outside for the second time, and now the water was frozen into sheets of ice. And he was angry. Very, very angry. "Humans!" he growled to himself, not even able to hear himself over the howling blizzard. "Why do I bother with them?" At the same time, the part of himself that he actually like whispered, _because of Amy. Because of Rory. Because of those of that silly, loveable species that do things that warm your hearts_. "Well, I wish it would do more to warm my entire body up right now," he grumbled aloud. He wasn't exactly sure where he was going. Neeko's directions hadn't been very precise, and as for what he was going to do if—when—he found what he was looking for, that was a whole 'nother issue.

Not for the first time, he wished he had asked Amy and Rory to come with him. But it would be just as dangerous for them as it was for him. Actually, that was a lie. It was much more dangerous for him. But he could take care of himself, for the most part.

The blizzard was dying down a little. It no longer felt like the snowflakes were needles propelled at him from a cannon, though they still stung his unprotected face and hands. He was pretty sure he would be bleeding if it wasn't so cold. The Doctor rubbed his frozen nose with nearly frozen hands. _I really should be getting close_, he said. Just then, a voice called out through the snow.

"I say!" it shouted. "Who are you?"

The Doctor looked around for whoever was calling to him. He hoped whoever it was would be friendly. "Just a traveler!" he called back. "I'm looking for a small town, I heard there was one around here."

Suddenly, a broad, dark figure loomed out of the snow, right in front of the Doctor. He grabbed the Doctor by the shoulder. "But you aren't from here," he said. "Where the hell are you from? There aren't any other humans on Niopheltaurus."

Here came the tricky part. "Ah, yes," the Doctor said, squinting up and trying to get a look at his aggressor's face. The other man was only a little taller than the Doctor, but much bigger. "Well, about that. You see, I'm not, well, exactly, human."

"What's that supposed to mean? There isn't any intelligent life on Niopheltaurus save humans. What game are you playing?"

The Doctor's temper flared up and he jerked away from the other man. "Really?" he shouted sarcastically over the storm. "What do you call the indigenous life form that evolved and lived here millions of years before humans ever spotted this planet and decided to use it for their own colonization process? The small, white, furry beings that you've driven underground because you hunted them for sport, and never bothered to learn their language or make contact with because they were shy and didn't speak to you first? They have built a whole city underground, to escape from you, and when you come across any member of that race now, especially if it seems small and helpless, you trap it and poison it, for no reason at all! If that isn't intelligent life, I don't know what is, and right now, I'm struggling to think of the humans as intelligent!" The Doctor knew he was going to regret his outburst as soon as he finished, but he didn't anticipate what the retribution would be.

The other man's foot collided with the Doctor's stomach, and he collapsed, gasping for breath and unable to fight back. He kicked the Doctor again, saying "If you aren't human, then you have no place on Niopheltaurus, and as for those other aliens, I fail to see how any reasonable person could look at them and call them an intelligent being. They're no more than animals."

Trying to stand back up, to get away from the drenching snow, the Doctor gasped out, "And what does that make you?" He could feel a bruise forming on his ribs, but before he could even stand up properly, the man's fist came down hard on top of his head. The Doctor fell into unconsciousness, but he heard the other man's retort.

"The man who is going to leave you here to freeze." And the whirling whiteness of the snow turned black.


	6. Chapter 6

Six

"Rory."

"Yes, Amy."

"We have to go find him."

Rory knew she was right. But he wasn't eager to go back out into the freezing snow. He ignored that feeling. The Doctor might need their help. "Yup. I know. Let's go." They told Eepa and Keea what they were doing.

"But did the Doctor not ask you to stay?" Eepa had said.

Amy laughed a little, despite her worry. "Oh, ordered us to stay is more like it. But we've given him long enough." And so they had left.

Rory was thankful that the snow wasn't coming down quite as hard, and the wind had died down too. Amy had grabbed the Doctor's long blue coat from where it lay abandoned at the edge of the corridor where the hole leading into the underground city was located, and they had climbed out using the ladder situated underneath another hole in the corridor next to it. The blizzard had, in fact, lightened up enough so that Rory could see the two suns. One was a burning, intense white, but smaller, or farther away, than the orange star much closer. The orange one was larger than Earth's Sun.

The deep footprints made by the Doctor an hour previously were still not fully covered. It was relatively easy to follow him, and Rory found that he wasn't even all that cold under his big brown coat. He and Amy held hands as they walked, mostly in silence. Rory figured that either they were walking faster than the Doctor had, or the snow had slowed down really fast, judging by the depth of the footprints. Then, Amy spotted something.

"Rory, look over there." She pointed. There was, as far as Rory could tell, another set of footprints crushed into the snow, that were larger than the Doctor's. "There's been someone else here."

"Yeah, I see the tracks," Rory agreed. They crunched over a small snowdrift.

"Oh my God!" Amy cried, and let go of Rory's hand, running towards a figure that was lying on the ground, half buried in the snow. Rory followed her quickly.

It was the Doctor. Amy was panicking slightly as she tried to brush the snow off of his frozen coat. Rory helped her, and took the Doctor's wrist, trying to find a pulse.

"He's still alive," Rory said, immensely relieved, "though I'm not sure what pulse rate is normal for a man with two hearts.

Amy breathed a sigh of relief, and pressed her hands onto her unconscious friend's face, trying to warm him up. "We have got to get him to the TARDIS," she ordered. She brushed a clump of frozen hair off his forehead, and frowned. "Rory, look at this." Rory hissed in sympathy. There was a big purple bruise on the Doctor's head.

"That's probably what knocked him out," Rory concluded.

Amy looked furious. "Who would do this to him?"

Rory thought for a second. "Quite possibly whoever's footprints we saw back there."

Amy had her vengeful face on as she pulled the Doctor's head out of the snow and onto her lap. "Should we try to wake him up?" Amy asked. Before Rory could respond, the Doctor's eyes fluttered half open. His eyelashes were each individually coated in ice. He gave a slight whimper as he blinked and looked up at Amy. "Hey," she said softly.

"Ouch," he said in return. He tried to sit up. Amy and Rory helped him.

"What the hell happened to you?" Amy asked bluntly.

"Erm," the Doctor replied. He blinked a couple of times. "My eyelashes are heavy. That's weird." He brushed the ice off of them. "That's better."

"Doctor, don't change the subject," Rory reprimanded.

The Doctor sighed. "Someone kicked me. I think." He tried to pull his frozen coat off, but it was actually frozen, encased in ice. "I'm cold," he complained suddenly. Amy and Rory pulled him to his feet and helped him get his coat off, then wrapped him in the blue one that Rory was now very glad Amy had thought to grab. "That's better," the Doctor said happily. Then he frowned as if he remembered something. "Hang on. You two! Didn't I tell you to stay put?"

"Doctor!" Amy shouted, exasperated. "You'd probably be dead if we hadn't come."

The Doctor looked a tiny bit ashamed, but covered it well. "The point remains." Then his point fell apart as he took a step and nearly fell over.

Rory caught him. "Okay, we're taking you back to the TARDIS."

The Doctor blinked wearily, but seemed to think better of protesting as he almost fell over again. "All right," he muttered. "'S that way." He pointed, and winced as his fingers had a difficult time bending properly. With one arm draped over each companion, they stumbled along the snowy ground as the storm faded away, leaving a clear and pale purple sky with two suns floating above them.

Rory noticed the Doctor grimacing and occasionally winking away tears of pain as feeling came back into his freezing limbs. Amy noticed, too, and both of the Ponds moved a little closer to him. He had taken his arms off from around their shoulders, but Amy had taken a hold of his hand and wouldn't let go. Then the Doctor laughed as he spotted something in the distance. "Look! It's the TARDIS!" Amy and Rory laughed, too. Their familiar blue box had a heap of snow on top of it.

Soon enough, they were inside the comfortably warm interior of the box. The Doctor sighed in relief and went to the wardrobe to find some warm, dry clothes. Probably, Rory reflected, ones exactly like he had been wearing earlier, since those were the only clothes he had seen the Doctor in since the first time he had met his alien friend. Sure enough, the Doctor soon came striding back into the console room, where Rory stood behind Amy who was slumped across the pilot's chair. (Rory wasn't sure why it was called that. He had never actually seen the Doctor sit down while flying the TARDIS.)The Doctor's hair was messy normally, but Rory wasn't sure if he'd ever seen it quite like this. Apparently when drying it, the Doctor had not bothered to comb it out, and it stuck out in odd angles, disheveled and floppy.

"Okay," he said. "Gonna do a bit of timey-wimey stuff here, technically against the rules, but I really am not too concerned with that right now. I'll be careful," he protested when Amy gave him a look. "I promise, I won't mess anything up."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Just so long as you let me fix your hair later."

"Oi, what is wrong with my hair?" the Doctor said, offended.

"Normally, it just looks like a paintbrush," Amy teased. "Right now, more like a mop… that's just been electrocuted." The Doctor pursed his lips in indignation, but didn't say anything

"Right," he muttered as he threw a couple of switches and wrenched back a lever. "That's…that, crossing timeline…there…" He dashed across to the other side of the main console to press a button, then ran down to the lower level and flicked some toggles and pushed a couple more buttons. "And…landing…now!" The familiar noise of the TARDIS engines sounded, and there was a thud as they landed.

"Okay…when and where are we?" Rory asked once he had regained his balance.

"Fairly close where we were an hour ago, but just a few minutes after we walked away," the Doctor answered. "I figured it couldn't hurt, and it might buy us back some of the time I wasted by being thick and letting myself get knocked out. Maybe now we can save a couple more lives."

Rory realized that the Doctor would blame himself for any life lost while he was unconscious. "Doctor," he started awkwardly. "It's not your fault."

The Doctor looked at him blankly. "Isn't it?" Then he flung open the door and marched outside.


	7. Chapter 7

Seven

Amy and Rory followed him outside. Well, outside the TARDIS, but not outside into the open. Not for the first time, it seemed as if the TARDIS had landed in a cleaning cupboard.

"Doctor," Rory said. "Where are we?"

"Inside a place…sort of thing, I think." The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and unlocked the door to the cupboard. He opened the door and light streamed in.

"Well, thanks, that was helpful," Rory grumbled as he and Amy followed him out into a brightly lit hallway, white tiled and sterile, leading on in both directions until it came to a sort of "T" with another corridor on each end. "Which way now?"

"Stop being impatient, Rory," the Doctor chastised distractedly, scanning for something with his sonic. "We're trying to find a sample of the poison that hasn't been inside a Squeak child yet, an untainted sample, you could say."

"Oh…kay," Rory said slowly. "And this place is…?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "A lab, Rory. As if the tiles and the smell weren't a dead giveaway."

Rory understood that. "What sort of lab?" The Doctor locked on to something with his screwdriver and it beeped with a result.

"Experimentation lab," he said, pointing. "This way." And he hurried off, his companions following.

There seemed to be no one about. The whole place was deserted, long white corridors and big, mostly empty white rooms, some lined with shelves and bottles, others with computers, but none of them seemed to be what the Doctor was looking for. "Why isn't there anyone here?" Amy asked, panting a little as she kept pace with the nearly running Doctor.

"Oh, that's my fault, really," the Doctor replied. "I suppose I told one of them that I was an alien, and they must have believed me. Now they're looking for alien tech all over this planet, trying to figure out where I came from. That's why we took the TARDIS here. Even with all her shields, it's better to hide her in the place they won't look: their own base."

"Is that how you got knocked out?" Amy persisted. "Did you tick someone off by telling them all sorts of know-it-all Time Lord stuff?"

The Doctor stiffened a little. "No, I ticked him off by telling him that the Squeaks were an intelligent race that didn't deserve to have their young poisoned by the likes of some stupid scientists, and then basically accused him of being now more than what he was accusing the Squeaks of being; a primitive, non-sentient animal." His tone was prickly with annoyance. Rory couldn't tell if it was directed towards Amy or the man who had knocked him out. He hoped it was the latter.

"Sorry, Doctor," Amy said in a quiet voice.

The Doctor's voice softened. "'S nothing to do with you, Pond, it's not your fault. You're one of the good ones; you too, Rory."

Rory smiled. "Thanks."

"Aha!" the Doctor cried. His sonic screwdriver bleeped urgently as he spun it around to face another lab door. "It's in here!" Sonicking the door quickly, the Doctor burst into the room. "There!" he said, pointing at some large, open cans of some sort of liquid sitting out on the table in the center of the room. It was the same color green as the affected Squeaks' fur. The Doctor stood over the cans, scanning them for data on the ingredients. His face went from pleased to horrified in ten seconds. "No, that's…disgusting," he said, sounding, well, disgusted. "What sort of person could dump that stuff on any living animal, sentient or no?"

"Doctor, what is it?" Rory asked cautiously.

The Doctor looked up. "Well, it's just chemicals, but they're horrible, nasty, toxic stuff. It's like they're trying to find some poison that works on every species in the universe. They'd better not be." He took a vial, a pipette, and some gloves out of his coat pocket. Being very careful not to touch the liquid, he got a couple drops of a sample into the glass vial, twisted the lid on very tight, checked to make sure it was sealed, and placed everything back in his pocket, carefully and neatly.

Rory was getting nervous about discovery. "Well, then, that's what we came for. Uh, should we get going now? Figure out an antidote in the TARDIS, or something?"

The Doctor smiled grimly. "Oh, yes, that's what we came for, and that's what we're going to do. But not just yet."

"What's left?" Amy inquired. The Doctor went over to one of the high-techy looking computers built into the wall.

"This," he said, his screwdriver buzzing and glowing bright green. Some sort of video popped up on the screen, an overhead view of an office with five people, all staring anxiously at another computer screen. He held his finger to his lips and looked at Amy and Rory. They both nodded. The people on the screen didn't seem to know they were being watched. Then the Doctor shouted. "Hello!" All five people in the office cried out and looked around wildly.

"No," the Doctor continued calmly, "you can't see me, but I can see you. As you can tell, I've hacked into your systems. Rather well, if I say so myself, but then, they are fairly primitive compared to what I'm used to."

One of the two women on the screen seemed to get over her shock. "Our systems are state of the art! They cost a fortune to make."

"Yeah," the Doctor said, unimpressed. "Well, guess what. _I'm not human_. Never will be, never have been, actually that's not true, there was one time—but that's not the point. The point is…I'm a Time Lord. I'm used to a higher standard than thirty second century human."

The largest person in the room, a man slightly taller than the Doctor, frowned. "I recognize your voice," he said. "But I thought you were dead." Rory realized that that must be the man who had knocked the Doctor unconscious.

The Ponds could tell that the Doctor was getting angry, and he showed it. "I'm not that easy to kill!" he said. "Not like the helpless young natives of this planet whom you poisoned, dumped into the snow, and left to die, as an _EXPERIMENT_!" Amy and Rory both jumped as the Doctor raised his voice even higher. Then it was hushed again, but it was an icy, deadly calm. "If I were a better man, I would just kill all of you. Unfortunately for you, I'm not that forgiving. I don't have the patience that I used to, so listen hard.

"I've hacked into your computers thoroughly. I have total control over all overrides and safeties. And I'm setting your door systems to psychic. No one gets in, and no one gets out…until each and every life form in this building is honestly and completely sorry for what you did to those children, for their sake, not for yours'. I've taken the liberty of locking all teleports and communications outside of this base, too, so don't think you can find a loophole. I'm too clever for that, and if one of you tries hacking back in, I've set up an electric shock to knock you out. I hope that you have a good amount of water and food locked away somewhere, because judging from what I've seen, remorse could take a while." Rory could see the satisfaction on the Doctor's face when he saw the terror on those he had condemned. "Goodbye," the Doctor said, and switched the audio link off.


	8. Chapter 8

Eight

As soon as the audio link was cut off, a visible change could be seen in the Doctor's demeanor. He gave a long sigh, his shoulders slumped, and he buried his face in his hands. Rory and Amy stayed silent, a bit frightened by what they had just seen.

"Doctor," Amy said finally, and hesitantly. "Did you actually lock everyone in?"

After a moment, the Doctor raised his head and looked directly at her. "Yeah. Of course I did, Pond. Everyone except us, because we've got the TARDIS!" He tried to sound cheerful, but failed. "Plus, we've got what we came for, and that took care of the problem of those scientists. Didn't it? They won't ever hurt the Squeaks again, if they ever even get out of here, not if the psychic lock works."

"Okay," Rory said, "but we still need to leave, before they come looking for us."

The Doctor nodded quickly. "Yes, yeah, that would be smart. TARDIS down this corridor, then left, right, right, and left, I'm pretty sure." He turned and strode away quickly, but Rory could see his slight trembling that gave away how shocked he was by his own loss of temper.

Back in the TARDIS and hanging around in the Vortex to, as the Doctor put it, "save time" which Rory found a bit amusing, the Doctor was examining the toxin at an atomic level, and Amy and Rory were doing their level best not to disturb him. They wandered into their room that the Doctor had given them on the TARDIS and sat on their bed. Amy picked up one of the books that lay in little piles on the bedside tables, and flipped through it, then put it back down. She had read it several times already. Rory just put his head back on a propped up pillow and looked at the ceiling. Per Amy's request a long time ago, the Doctor had made it so the ceiling seemed like it was an open window to the outside when they were in deep space. It didn't work in the Vortex, but it played recorded material instead, and Rory found it beautiful and very relaxing to watch the nebulae and stars drift across their own little sky.

Amy was getting bored. "How long is he going to take?" she complained.

"Be patient," Rory told her. "Go check on him if you're tired of waiting."

Amy sighed. She sat up and bounced a little on the bed before rolling off it and saying, "You know what, I think I will." She flicked her red hair out of her eyes. "I'm a bit worried after what happened earlier. I'll go talk to him." She walked out into the TARDIS corridor. Rory smiled at his Scottish wife without knowing exactly why as she left.

The Doctor was sitting cross legged behind the stairs to the lower level of the TARDIS console room.

"Hiding, Raggedy Man?" Amy asked, jokingly but kindly, as she spotted him.

He was holding two small bottles of liquid that looked nearly identical, comparing them and squinting at them, shining onto them a light which he held in his mouth. "Hiding, Pond? From what?" the Doctor replied distractedly through the tiny flashlight between his teeth.

Amy came and sat next to him. "Oh, I dunno. Rory and me. Yourself."

"Why would I be hiding from myself?" he asked, placing one of the bottles onto his left side, the other on his right. Both were joining an already numerous amount of similar bottles on either side, and another group stood in pairs in front of him.

"You do it all the time," Amy told him. "Can I help? With the bottles, I mean."

The Doctor shook his head. "Nah, that's probably not a good idea." Amy laughed a little in agreement. He picked up another pair of bottles. "You could hold the light, though." She picked it up and shone it into the bottles he was holding. "Look at this!" the Doctor exclaimed indignantly. "This is rubbish, absolute rubbish! Both of these. They look like they haven't been replaced in a hundred years! How do I not have good chemicals here?" He sighed in frustration. "This one will have to do." He placed the bottle he was holding in his left hand on his right side, and vice versa. He looked at Amy. "But seriously, how is it that I've not refreshed my chemical store for a century?"

"Because you forget things." Amy reached over to try and flatten his still mussed-up hair. "And because you don't use it very often and because, for a Time Lord, you really have a pretty bad sense of time."

The Doctor smiled, and picked up the next set of bottles. "That's true," he said softly. "All three of those." He chose which bottle to use almost instantly, not even bothering to ask Amy for the light. She would have gotten it anyway, but his hair just wouldn't lie flat. Well, as flat as it ever did.

"Your hair is ridiculous, anyone ever tell you that?" she laughed. He laughed, too.

"Yes, actually. More than once, and in more than one body. Always check your hair first, after regenerating, Amy. I mean…" he broke off. "I mean, if it ever so happened that you regenerated. Which is not likely, of course."

"No," Amy agreed. "It isn't very likely. What did you think of first, when you checked it this time?"

The Doctor gave a sheepish grin. "At first I thought I was a girl," he said. "Then, I was disappointed that I wasn't ginger."

Amy laughed again. "You want to be ginger?"

"Always have," the Doctor confirmed. "Never managed it, though. Hold the light?" He inspected another pair of bottles and placed them in their respective collections.

"Which group is which?" Amy asked curiously, after another few bottles had been placed in each.

"What? Oh, left are the good bottles, right are the bad ones."

"And what exactly are you sorting them for?" Amy persisted.

"I'm trying to mix an antidote for the poison," he said. "But some of these old chemicals are just too old to be effective, and it's hard trying to figure out which ones are better." He continued sorting for another couple minutes in silence. Finally, they reached the last couple of bottles. "There," he said, relieved. "Done."

"Now what?" Amy asked.

"I have to mix them all together, basically. Well, acidically, technically, but that wasn't what I meant. And you knew that."

"And you probably want me well away from that in case it blows up in your face," Amy inferred. "All right. But, Doctor, one more question."

"What is it, Pond?"

"Are you okay?" He didn't answer. Amy pressed on. "I mean, about what happened in that lab. You weren't acting like yourself at all."

"I lost my temper, is all…" the Doctor replied, not looking at Amy.

"Yeah, but you don't do that very often. At least, not around us."

He still wouldn't meet her eyes. "I'm not proud of it, Amelia." He finally looked straight at her, and his ancient eyes looked deeply troubled. "But I did make sure that they had plenty of food and water before I locked them it, I promise. I only…" his voice broke a little. He cleared his throat, and carried on, more quietly than before, ashamed of what he was saying. "I only made it seem like I didn't care whether they died to scare them. And that scares me, Amelia. And I can't risk crossing our timelines again, the TARDIS didn't like it the first time, and having three of us on one planet would be too much. And I wasted time frightening those scientists, when I should have been leaving as soon as we got the sample. What if one of the Squeaks dies because I was too slow, Amy? What if the three minutes it took to do that was too long and I'm too late for them?"

Amy listened in shock as the Doctor voiced his fears. "You won't be," she said when he paused for breath. "Hey." She took his hand. "Listen to me, Raggedy Man. You won't be too late. I know it."

He took a deep breath. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Now, go mix your chemical whatevers, and stop beating yourself up," she told him sternly.

"Yes, ma'am."

Amy stood up, letting go of the Doctor's hand. Being careful not to knock over any bottles, she leaned down and kissed the top of his head, then walked up into the main console room and back to her and Rory's bedroom.

"What happened?" Rory asked as she came in.

"The usual," Amy said. "He's blaming himself for everything and feeling awful, but is determined to figure everything out all by himself. Also, he's mixing chemicals, and I'm not sure if I should be scared or not."

Rory laughed. Above them on their little piece of sky, a faraway star burst into a supernova, spreading colored light across its whole distant galaxy.


	9. Chapter 9

Nine

The TARDIS engines roared to life. Rory and Amy ran out into the console room. The Doctor was doing his familiar dance around the console, flying the TARDIS. He looked thrilled with himself, piloting one-handed, holding a large, stoppered bottle of pale blue, crystal clear liquid in the other hand. "Look!" he said delightedly, as the TARDIS came to a jerking halt. "I did it, Amy, Rory, I did it! Come on, we have to hurry!" He flung the doors to the TARDIS open and ran outside. They were back in the Squeaks' underground home, in the dead end of a corridor leading in one direction, towards the main cavern. They ran, not wanting to waste a single second.

The streets of the village were still deserted, and it was quiet, but not silent, for there were rustling and murmuring sounds coming out of each of the small houses.

Just as the trio burst into the infirmary, the Doctor holding the cure aloft, a high pitched wail sounded out. The Doctor stopped in his tracks, confronted with a scene of utter devastation. Eepa, the formerly calm, composed emperor of the Squeaks, was holding the discolored, small body of a young female Squeak. Rory realized with a jolt that this must be his daughter. Eepa was sobbing heart-wrenchingly, rocking back and forth, and shaking his daughter as if trying to wake her up. Working in the hospital, Rory had seen things like this many times before, but he never got used to it, and it was always sad.

"Eepa…" the Doctor whispered. "Oh, no. I have the cure now, I hope, but…Oh, I'm so, so, so sorry."

Eepa whirled around to face the Doctor, still holding his daughter's body. "Heal her! Please, Doctor, please, please, I cannot live without her, she is the only one I have left!"

The Doctor reached for the tiny alien girl, and Eepa reluctantly let him take her. After a second, the Doctor gave her back to Eepa. "She's gone," he whispered.

"Only just!" Eepa protested desperately. "There must be something that you can do."

The Doctor shook his head, sadly. "I'm sorry, it's too late. I'm too late. But I'm not too late for the others, please, let me help them."

Eepa sank to the floor, still holding his daughter tightly. He was sobbing still, huge tears dripping from his large brown eyes framed by white fur. "Do what you will," he said softly. The Doctor nodded and went to the next bed over. Keea came out from behind a curtain and assisted him, keeping her silence.

Rory and Amy held hands and watched for a little while. Then, Rory couldn't stand it anymore. The Doctor was surely tearing himself up about being too late, and the noble leader distraught was just too much. Letting go of Amy's hand, he rushed over to Eepa and lifted the girl out of his arms. She was still warm. "Please let this work," Rory said to no one in particular, beginning to try and restart her heart. "Come on, little one," he whispered, pressing in an even rhythm down on the left side of her chest.

"Rory!" the Doctor said. "That isn't going to work, please, let her be."

"Why won't it work?" Rory shouted angrily. "It has to work, why won't it work?"

"Please, Rory, she's gone," Amy tried to tell him.

"I'm not going to give up," Rory said, ignoring them. Eepa watched him with confusion.

The Doctor blinked rapidly, staring at Rory. "Um, right!" he blurted out.

"What?"

The Doctor shook his head. "The heart! It's on the right side, not the left, Rory!" Rory switched immediately to the right side, compressing and releasing, a seemingly endless rhythm.

Rory refused to believe that he would fail. It just wasn't an option right now. After what seemed like eternity, he began to think that he might just not succeed. Then, he thought that he might have felt a flutter under his fingers, a tiny heartbeat. The Doctor saw his change in expression, and dripped a bit of the blue liquid into the Squeak's mouth. The heart was working now, just barely, and there was nothing more to do. Rory sat back and watched.

Then, she gave a tiny little cough and started to breathe. Eepa gave a cry of joy, scooping her up from off the floor and hugging her tightly. The little girl gave a little sigh. "Da…" she said. The Doctor watched, his expression torn between relief and intense grief. As soon as he saw Rory looking at him, he plastered the familiar happy, carefree look he usually wore on his face, though as usual, it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Well done, Pond," he said, helping Rory get to his feet.

"Thanks, Doctor," Rory said, his pride blossoming thinking of the life he had just saved. "Come on, we have work to do." And leaving Eepa in his joy, the Doctor, Rory, and Amy administered the antidote to all of the children who were still sick.

After they finished their work, with the help of Keea, all three of them went to stand outside of the infirmary. The streets were no longer empty. Somehow, the word had spread that the illness wasn't contagious, and Rory observed the Squeaks, their white fur standing out against the dirt floor, walking along the streets, speaking in their high-pitched voices, talking about things he couldn't quite make out. Rory felt a pang of sadness, and of shame. This species didn't belong underground. They belonged up in the snow, blending in and keeping warm with their long, thick pale fur, and it was due to his species that they weren't there.

Together, Amy, Rory, and the Doctor noticed some of the Squeaks giving them suspicious looks. That was only to be expected, due to the fact that they all looked like humans. By unspoken agreement, they knew it was time to go. Slipping silently away from the small town, they walked back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor slipped the key into the lock of the blue box, and the door gave its signature creak opening. Amy and Rory leaned against one of the railings and against each other whilst the Doctor flew them away.


	10. Chapter 10

Ten

The machinery in the center console column sighed up and down, wheezing tiredly. The Doctor looked up at the Ponds. They looked back at him. The Doctor sighed. "What?"

Amy wandered over to him. "What happens to them? The scientists you locked in the lab?" she asked bluntly. "Weren't there other people on Niopheltaurus? Surely someone would have noticed they were locked in and figured something out."

The Doctor pursed his lips and looked away. "No," he said. "They were the only ones. The only colonists there. Actually, they weren't even colonists, just researchers. Thirty-first century space travel was still quite primitive, see, they can get places really quickly, but they were still based on Earth. I think that this mission was actually sent from a colony from a galaxy that wasn't the Milky Way. Only small missions and colonies were being established outside of the galaxy, and this was about as far as they had gotten so far."

"So they don't have anyone to come save them?" Rory asked.

The Doctor threw his hands out in frustration. "I don't know, maybe not! How much does it matter to you?"

Amy was dead serious. "If it's the difference between whether you condemned them to death or not, then it matters a lot. Why don't you want to check to see if anyone comes to help them?"

The Doctor went back to flying the TARDIS, trying to ignore her. Eventually he answered, "I gave them the tools to free themselves, Pond. You were there, you saw."

Rory thought that he understood. "And if they don't feel remorse, then they don't deserve to live, is that it?" he said.

"No!" the Doctor said. "That's not what I said, is it?"

Amy glared. "It was implied." Again, the Doctor didn't meet her gaze. "Is this just because you don't like looking back?" she persisted. "Come on, Doctor, talk to us."

The Doctor's shoulders slumped. He gave in. "If I went back," he began, "if I made sure they got rescued, would that make you happy?"

"Yes," the Ponds both said at once.

"All right then." He pushed a single button and the TARDIS started to whir, leading Rory to believe that the Doctor had already programmed the coordinates into the navigation system before he had agreed out loud. The TARDIS stopped her noise. "We're here," the Doctor said. He gestured to the doors. "After you," he said humorlessly, with a mock bow.

… … … … …

It had been several months since Rory and Amy had last seen the Doctor. And they were worried. "Rory…" Amy started again.

"What?" Rory responded, quite snippily, recognizing her tone. He was washing dishes in their kitchen, and she was putting the last of the leftover dinner into the refrigerator.

"He should have come back by now." Amy closed the fridge.

"Yep," Rory agreed. "We have had this conversation before, you know. Like, a hundred times." He turned the water off and dried his hands on the towel sitting on the counter. "And you know that I agree with you."

"What if he's done something stupid?" Amy sighed.

"I'm sure he's got River to look after him."

Amy muttered something incoherent in agreement and flopped down into a chair, slumping forward so her elbows were on the table and her face was in her hands. "Mmhmm." Then: "What if he never comes back?"

"I'm sure he will," Rory said.

As if to prove his point, both Ponds heard the noise of the TARDIS engines, roaring in their backyard. Amy snapped her head up. Scrambling up from her seat, she grabbed Rory's hand and they ran outside. The blue box had finished materializing, but the door wasn't opening. Amy strode right up to it and knocked hard, twice. Rory knew that there were going to be some sparks flying now, and he took a few steps back. This was going to be between Amy and the Doctor.

The door pushed gently open, and the Doctor stepped out, looking (rightly, too) a bit scared and very ashamed. Amy crossed her arms and glared. "Two…and a half…months…" she said, deadly calm.

The Doctor would meet her gaze now. "I'm sorry, Pond. Hang on, really? That long? Oops."

Amy's temper broke loose. "Oops?" she shouted at him. "No! That is not enough, Doctor! Not after how you left us! How could you do that to us? We thought something had happened! That you had done something stupid and gotten yourself hurt because you were too scared to look back so you ran too fast!"

"I wouldn't…" the Doctor tried to protest, but Amy cut him off.

"Oh, wouldn't you? Because I'm not sure anymore. I don't know what you wouldn't do, and you know what? That scares me. So, please, tell me, explain, if you can, why the _hell_ you did this?" Amy was trembling with rage.

The Doctor had his back pressed against his TARDIS, recoiling from Amy's shouts. "I fixed it," he said softly. "I made sure they didn't die. I promise."

"How?" Amy asked, still angry, but her words no longer contained the bite they had previously.

"I took them back to their original colony," the Doctor explained. "I explained to the court system there what they had done, and about the Squeaks being sentient beings, and I let them decide what to do. You were right," he added. "It hadn't been my place to decide their fate. I went too far. It's not the first time I've done that, and I should have kept you with me."

Amy was still reserved, and quite a bit cross. "And what happened to them?" she said.

The Doctor gave a slight smile, one of both sadness and satisfaction. "They were charged as if they had done this to human children," he said. "Some allowances were made based on ignorance, but they were sentenced to prison for an 'indefinite' amount of time."

"Good," Amy conceded. "How long did you let them sit in their lab before getting them?"

"Only a couple weeks." The Doctor blinked and looked down at his boots. "I should have gotten them sooner," he said. "But…"

Rory could see Amy's anger fade away. She pulled the Doctor into a tight hug. "Oh, shut up, you," she whispered. Then, still hugging him, she slapped the back of his head.

"Ow," he said unconvincingly feigning indignation. "What was that for?"

"You're an idiot, you know that?" she mumbled into his shoulder.


	11. Chapter 11

Eleven

"So I'm forgiven, then?" the Doctor said happily when he saw Amy pulling out a box of fish fingers from the fridge.

Amy glanced at him. "Mostly," she conceded.

Rory smiled. "Well, I'm glad for that," he said. "Imagine if I had to live with that sort of bickering forever." He leaned back in his chair. "It is really getting late," he observed, watching the darkness outside grow deeper, the stars winking into view. "Shouldn't we be going off to bed soon? We've been talking for hours."

"Who needs sleep?" Amy and the Doctor said together. All three burst out laughing. And Rory realized that he didn't feel a bit tired. He would be perfectly happy to stay like this forever. Maybe they could make it better if only River was there, too, _but_ _you can't have everything_, Rory thought.

The Doctor told stories about long ago adventures, mentioning people and places and races that the Ponds had never heard of. They were up for a long time, eating fish fingers and custard, and talking and laughing. They had a time machine, after all. They could always catch up on sleep.

Finally, though, Amy started yawning. "All right, boys," she said. "It's time to go to sleep. Now. C'mon, Rory." She stood up. "Doctor, you want to take the couch?"

"That'll be fine, Amelia," he said, indicating with his hand that they could go, and they didn't need to worry about him.

Rory stood up too, and he waved good night to the Doctor, walking off into the hallway with Amy. The Doctor waited until they had disappeared from sight before he stood up too. Instead of going to the couch, he walked slowly over to the front door and flicked the light switch before heading out into the night.

Taking a few steps, the Doctor breathed in the cool, fresh air. He sat down on the slightly damp grass of the Ponds' front lawn and looked up at the stars. He could smell the grass, and the whole village. It was so alive. He always joked about how slow and sleepy Leadworth was, but it was so alive, even at one in the morning. Just another reason he loved humans. _Always so alive_, he reflected. The moon was new, making the stars glow even brighter. "I wonder why they call it 'new'," the Doctor mused aloud. "It's always been there, even when you can't see it. Earth's constant companion." He smiled, the stars reflected in his ancient eyes. "Weary travelers," he whispered. "Always falling through space, together. The story never changes, never ends, never falters. An endless cycle. Well, not endless. Everything ends somehow. Everyone knows that." He smiled again, sadly, as he remembered something. "Everyone knows that everyone dies," he murmured to the sky. "And no one knows it like me. But I suppose I live for the days where everyone lives. Not this time, but it does happen, you know," he remarked conversationally to the empty night. "Once in a blue moon."

_…__the end…_

* * *

><p><em>Wow! I'm done! Thanks to everyone who read, favorited, followed, and especially reviewed. I loved writing this and I hope you loved reading it. <em>_This story takes place in between Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and A Town Called Mercy. __If you liked it at all, I'm writing other stories, too: currently, one called Consciousness which is a 10 and Donna story, as well as some Torchwood stuff. Thank you again! _


End file.
